Heiress presumptive

As a granddaughter of the monarch in the male line, Elizabeth held
the title of a British princess,
with the style Her Royal
Highness, her full style being Her Royal Highness
Princess Elizabeth of York. At birth, she was third in the
line of
succession to the throne, behind her uncle, The Prince Edward, Prince of
Wales, and her father. Although her birth did generate public
interest, there was no reason to believe then that she would ever
become queen, as it was widely assumed that the Prince of Wales
would marry and have children of his own. In 1936, when her
grandfather, the King, died and her uncle Edward succeeded, she was
second in line after her father. Later that year, Edward abdicated and her father
became king. Elizabeth became heiress
presumptive, and was thereafter known as Her Royal Highness
The Princess Elizabeth.

In 1939, the Canadian
government wanted Elizabeth to accompany her parents on their
upcoming tour of Canada. However, the King decided against this,
stating that his daughter was too young to undertake such a
strenuous tour, which ended up being over a month long. Elizabeth
had probably met her future husband, Prince Philip of Greece and
Denmark in 1934 and 1937. After another meeting at the Royal Naval
College in Dartmouth in July 1939, Elizabeth, though only 13 years old,
fell in love with Philip, and they began to exchange
letters.

World War II

Princess Elizabeth changing a vehicle
wheel during World War II.

In
September 1939, with the outbreak of World
War II, Elizabeth and her younger sister, Margaret, stayed at
Balmoral
Castle, Scotland, from September to Christmas 1939, until
they moved to Sandringham
House, Norfolk.From
February to May 1940, they lived at Royal Lodge, Windsor, until moving to Windsor Castle, where they stayed for most of the next five
years.The suggestion that the two princesses be
evacuated
to Canada was rejected
by Elizabeth's mother; she said, "The children won't go without
me. I won't leave without the King. And the King will never
leave." The princesses remained at Windsor, where they staged
pantomimes at Christmas in aid of the Queen's Wool Fund. It was
from Windsor that Elizabeth, in 1940, made her first radio
broadcast during the BBC's Children's Hour, addressing other
children who had been evacuated from the cities. She stated:

During the war, plans were drawn up to affiliate Elizabeth more
closely with Wales, in order to quell the growing influence of
Welsh nationalists. In a report to Home
SecretaryHerbert Morrison, the
constitutional expert Edward Iwi proposed appointing Elizabeth as
Constable of Caernarfon Castle (a post then held by David Lloyd George); the idea was
rejected by Morrison, on the grounds that it might cause conflict
between north and south Wales. Morrison did, however, take
forward a suggestion by civil servant Thomas Jones to make her
patron of the Welsh League of Youth, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, and planned to
have her tour Wales as such. The idea was rejected by the King, who
refused to subject his young daughter to the pressures of official
tours and because two leading members of Urdd Gobaith
Cymru were conscientious
objectors.

In 1945, Elizabeth accompanied her parents on visits to
Commonwealth service personnel, and began to carry out solo duties,
such as reviewing a parade of Canadian airwomen. She joined the
Women's Auxiliary
Territorial Service, as No. 230873 Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor. Elizabeth
trained as a driver and mechanic and drove a military truck,
eventually rising to the rank of Junior Commander. She is now the
last surviving head of state who served in uniform during World War
II.

At the end of the war in Europe, on Victory in Europe Day, Elizabeth and
her sister mingled anonymously with the celebratory crowds in the
streets of London. She later said in a rare interview, "we asked my
parents if we could go out and see for ourselves. I remember we
were terrified of being recognised ... I remember lines of
unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, all of us
just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief." Two years
later, the Princess made her first official overseas tour, when she
accompanied her parents to Southern Africa. On her 21st birthday,
in a broadcast to the British
Commonwealth from South Africa, she
pledged: "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it
be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service
of our great imperial family to which we all belong."

The marriage was not without controversy: Philip had no financial
standing, was foreign-born (though a British subject), and had
sisters who had married German noblemen with Nazi links.
Elizabeth's mother was reported, in later biographies, to have
opposed the union initially, even dubbing Philip "The Hun". In
later life, however, she told biographer Tim
Heald that Philip was "an English gentleman". The country had
not yet completely rebounded from the devastation of the war; the
Princess still required rationing coupons to buy the
material for her gown, designed by Norman Hartnell. Elizabeth and Philip
received 1347 wedding gifts from around the world. At the ceremony,
Elizabeth's bridesmaids were her sister;
her cousin, Princess
Alexandra of Kent; Lady Caroline Montagu-Douglas-Scott;
Princess Alice,
Duchess of Gloucester; her second cousin, Lady Mary Cambridge; Lady Elizabeth Mary
Lambart (now Longman), daughter of Frederick Lambart, Earl of
Cavan; The Honourable Pamela Mountbatten (now Hicks), Philip's
cousin; and two maternal cousins, The Honourable Margaret Elphinstone (now Rhodes) and The
Honourable Diana Bowes-Lyon
(now Somervell). Her page
boys were her young paternal first cousins, Prince William of Gloucester
and Prince Michael of Kent.
In
post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for any of the Duke of
Edinburgh's German relations to
be invited to the wedding, including Philip's three surviving
sisters. Elizabeth's aunt, Princess Mary,
Princess Royal, allegedly refused to attend because her
brother, the Duke of
Windsor (who abdicated in 1936), was not invited due to his
marital situation; she gave ill health as the official reason for
not attending.

Elizabeth gave birth to her first child, Prince Charles, on 14 November
1948, several weeks after letters
patent were issued by her father allowing her children to enjoy
a royal and princely status to which they otherwise would not have
been entitled. Though the Royal House is
named Windsor, it was decreed
through a British Order-in-Council
in 1960, that those male-line descendants of Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip who were not princes and princesses of the United
Kingdom should have the personal surname Mountbatten-Windsor. In practice,
however, all of their children have used Mountbatten-Windsor as
their surname. A second child, Princess Anne, was born in 1950.

In the midst of preparations for the coronation, Princess
Margaret informed her sister that she wished to marry Peter Townsend, a divorced
commoner sixteen years older than Margaret,
with two sons from his previous marriage. The Queen asked them to
wait for a year; in the words of Martin Charteris, "the Queen was
naturally sympathetic towards the Princess, but I think she thought
– she hoped – given time, the affair would peter out." After
opposition from the Commonwealth prime ministers, and a British
minister's threat of resignation should Margaret and Townsend
marry, the Princess decided to abandon her plans.

Despite
the death of the Queen's grandmother Queen
Mary on 24 March 1953, the Queen's coronation went
ahead in Westminster
Abbey on 2 June 1953, in accordance with Mary's
wishes. The entire ceremony, save for the anointing and
communion, was televised throughout the Commonwealth, and watched
by an estimated twenty million people in Britain, with twelve
million more listening on the radio. Elizabeth wore a gown
commissioned from Norman Hartnell,
which consisted of embroidered floral emblems of the countries of
the Commonwealth: the Tudor rose of
England, the Scots thistle, the Welsh
leek, shamrocks for
Ireland, the wattle of Australia, the
maple leaf of Canada, the New Zealand
fern, South Africa's protea, two lotus
flowers for India and Ceylon, and Pakistan's wheat, cotton, and jute.

Continuing evolution of the Commonwealth

Elizabeth witnessed, over her life, the ongoing transformation of
the old British empire into the new
British Commonwealth, and its modern successor, the Commonwealth of
Nations. By the time of Elizabeth's accession in 1952, her role as
nominal head of multiple independent states was already
established. Spanning 1953–1954, the Queen and her husband embarked
on a six-month around-the-world tour. She became the first reigning
monarch of Australia and
New Zealand to visit those
nations. During the tour, crowds were immense; three-quarters of
the population of Australia were estimated to have seen the Queen.
Throughout her reign, Elizabeth has undertaken state visits
to foreign countries, as well as tours of
each Commonwealth country, including attending all Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meetings (CHOGM). Elizabeth II is the most
widely-travelled head of state in history.

In 1956,
French Prime MinisterGuy Mollet and British Prime Minister Sir
Anthony Eden discussed the possibility
of France joining in a
union with the United Kingdom; among the ideas put forward was one
in which Elizabeth was to be the French head of state. Mollet "had not thought
there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of Her
Majesty". The proposal was never accepted, and the following year
France signed the Treaty of Rome.
In
November that year, Britain and France invaded Egypt in an
ultimately unsuccessful attempt to
capture the Suez
canal. Earl Mountbatten of Burma claimed the Queen
was opposed to the invasion, though Prime Minister Eden denied it.
Eden resigned two months later.

The absence of a formal mechanism within the Conservative Party for choosing a
leader meant that, following Eden's resignation, it fell to the
Queen to decide whom to commission to form
a government. Eden recommended that Elizabeth consult Lord
Salisbury (the Lord
President of the Council). Lord Salisbury and Lord Kilmuir (the
Lord Chancellor) consulted the
Cabinet, Winston Churchill and the
Chairman of the 1922 Committee, as a
result of which the Queen appointed their recommended candidate:
Harold Macmillan. Six years later,
Macmillan himself resigned and advised the Queen to appoint
the Earl of Home as Prime
Minister, advice which she followed. In both 1957 and 1963, the
Queen came under criticism for appointing the Prime Minister on the
advice of a small number of ministers, or a single minister. In
1965, the Conservatives adopted a formal mechanism for choosing a
leader, thus relieving her of the duty.

The Suez crisis and the choice of Eden's successor led, in 1957, to
the first real personal criticism of the Queen. In a magazine,
which he owned and edited, Lord
Altrincham accused her of being "out of touch". Altrincham was
denounced by public figures and physically attacked by members of
the public appalled at his comments. Her Majesty made a state visit
to the United States that year, where she addressed the United Nations General
Assembly. On the same tour she opened the 23rd Canadian Parliament, becoming
the first Canadian monarch to open a parliamentary session. Two
years later, she revisited Canada and the United States. In 1961,
she toured Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Iran. During a trip to
Ghana, she refused to keep her distance from PresidentKwame Nkrumah, despite him being a target for
assassins. Harold Macmillan wrote at the time: "the Queen
has been absolutely determined all through. She is impatient of the
attitude towards her to treat her as... a film star... She has
indeed 'the heart and
stomach of a man'... She loves her duty and means to be a
queen."

In 1969, Elizabeth sent a congratulatory message to the Apollo 11 crew on the first manned lunar landing;
the micro-filmed message was left in a metal container on the
moon's surface. She later met the crew at Buckingham Palace.

According to Paul Martin,
Sr., by the end of the 1970s the Queen was worried that the
Crown "had little meaning for" Canadian Prime MinisterPierre Trudeau. Tony
Benn said that the Queen found Trudeau to be "rather
disappointing". Trudeau's supposed republicanism seemed to be
confirmed by his antics, such as sliding down banisters at
Buckingham Palace and pirouetting behind the Queen's back in 1977,
and the removal of various Canadian royal symbols during his
term of office. Martin—along with John Roberts and Mark MacGuigan—was sent to the UK in 1980 to
discuss the patriation of the Canadian constitution. The Queen was
deeply interested in the constitutional debate, particularly after
the failure of Bill C-60, which would have affected her role as
head of state. The entire party found
the Queen "better informed on both the substance and the politics
of Canada's constitutional case than any of the British politicians
or bureaucrats". As a result of the constitutional patriation, the
role of the British parliament in the Canadian constitution was
removed, but the monarchy was retained. Trudeau said in his
memoirs: "The Queen favoured my attempt to reform the Constitution.
I was always impressed not only by the grace she displayed in
public at all times, but by the wisdom she showed in private
conversation."

1980s

Elizabeth's personal courage, as well as her skill as a horsewoman,
was shown in 1981 during the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony.
Six shots
were fired at her from close range as she rode down The
Mall. She kept control of her horse, Burmese, and continued on, and later it was
revealed that the fired shots were blanks. The Canadian House of Commons was so
impressed by her display of courage that a motion was passed
praising her composure. The following year, the Queen found herself
in another precarious situation when she awoke in her bedroom at
Buckingham Palace to find a strange man, Michael Fagan, in the room with her.
Remaining calm throughout, for approximately ten minutes, and
through two calls to the palace police switchboard, Elizabeth spoke
to Fagan while he sat at the foot of her bed until assistance
arrived. From April to September that year, the Queen remained
anxious but proud of her son, Prince Andrew, who was serving with
British forces during the Falklands
War. Though she hosted President Ronald Reagan at Windsor Castle in 1982, and
visited his California ranch in 1983, she was angered when his
administration ordered the invasion of Grenada, one of her
Caribbean realms.

During Margaret Thatcher's tenure
as Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom in the 1980s, it was rumoured that
Elizabeth was worried that Thatcher's economic policies fostered
social divisions, and was reportedly alarmed by high unemployment,
a series of riots, the violence of a miners' strike, and Thatcher's
refusal to apply sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Thatcher told
Brian Walden, "the Queen is the kind of
woman who could vote SDP [Social Democratic Party]."
Reports of strained relations between Elizabeth and Thatcher
throughout the period varied over the extent of this difference and
to what degree it was due to concerns over policy, or a personality
clash. The Queen's feelings towards Thatcher were even described as
"cordial dislike". Despite such speculation, Thatcher later clearly
conveyed her personal admiration for the Queen in the BBC documentary Queen & Country, Thatcher
described the Queen as "marvellous" and "a perfect lady" who
"always knows just what to say", referring, in particular, to her
final meeting as prime minister with Elizabeth. Belying reports of
acrimony between them, after Thatcher retired from politics,
Elizabeth conferred on her two personal gifts of the sovereign: the
Order of Merit and the
Order of the Garter. Both the
Queen and Prince Philip attended Thatcher's 80th birthday
party.

In 1991, she became the first British monarch to address a joint
session of the United States
Congress. The following year, she attempted to save the failing
marriage of her eldest son, Charles, by counselling him and his
wife, Diana, Princess of
Wales, to patch up their differences. She was unsuccessful, and
the couple formally separated.

Annus horribilis

The Queen called 1992 her "annus
horribilis" in a speech on 24 November 1992. The year saw her
daughter divorced, one son separated and another whose marriage was
rocky. Windsor Castle had suffered
severe fire damage, and the monarchy had come under increased
criticism and public scrutiny. In an unusually personal
speech, she said any institution must expect criticism but asked,
"Couldn't it be done with a touch of humour, gentleness and
understanding?"

In the ensuing years, public revelations on the state of Charles
and Diana's marriage continued. Eventually, in consultation with
the British Prime Minister John Major,
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey,
her private secretary Robert
Fellowes, and her husband, she wrote to both Charles and Diana
saying that a divorce was now desirable. A year after the
divorce, Diana was killed in a car crash in
Paris on 31 August 1997. At the time, the Queen
was on holiday at Balmoral with her son and grandchildren. In their
grief, Diana's two sons wanted to attend church, and so their
grandparents took them that morning. For five days, the Queen and
the Duke shielded their grandsons from the ensuing press interest
by keeping them at Balmoral where they could grieve in private. The
royal family's seclusion caused public dismay. Pressured by her
family, friends, the new British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and public reaction, the Queen agreed
to broadcast live to the world on 5 September. In it, she expressed
admiration for Diana, and her feelings "as a grandmother" for
Princes William and Harry. The public mood was transformed
by the broadcast from hostility to respect.

Golden Jubilee and beyond

In 2002, Elizabeth marked her Golden Jubilee as queen.
She again undertook an extensive tour of her realms, which began in
Jamaica in February, where the Queen called the farewell banquet
"memorable" after a power cut plunged the King's House, the official residence
of the Governor-General, into darkness. Though public celebrations
in the UK were more muted than those that had taken place 25 years
earlier, due, in part, to the death of both the Queen Mother and
her sister earlier that year, there were street parties and
commemorative events in many locales. As in 1977, monuments
were named and gifts offered to honour the occasion, including, in
Canada, the Golden Jubilee Journalism New Media Centre at Sheridan
College, and the Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial
Park.

The Queen
and the Duke of Edinburgh celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2007, with a
special service at Westminster Abbey and private dinner hosted by Prince Charles at
Clarence
House on 19 November, and, the following day (their
actual anniversary) a dinner party with other members of the
Royal Family, former and
present Prime Ministers, and the surviving bridesmaids and pages
from the original wedding party. On 21 November, Elizabeth
and Philip travelled to Malta, where a Royal
Navy ship that was docked in the vicinity arranged its crew
members on deck in the form of the number 60.

Elizabeth could become the longest-lived British head of state (surpassing Richard Cromwell) on 29 January 2012 at age
85, the longest-reigning monarch in British history and the
longest-reigning queen regnant in world history (surpassing Queen
Victoria) on 10 September 2015 at age 89, and the longest-reigning
monarch in European history (surpassing King Louis XIV of France) on 26 May 2024 at
age 98.

Elizabeth has enjoyed good health throughout her life, and
continues to have what is described as excellent health and is
seldom ill. In June 2005, the Queen cancelled several engagements
after contracting what the Palace described as a bad cold. In
October 2006, she suffered a burst blood
vessel in her right eye. While the Queen would have suffered no
pain or lasting damage, burst blood vessels, though common in the
elderly, could be a sign of hypertension. Later that month, the Queen cancelled her
appointment to officially open the new Emirates Stadium, because of a strained back muscle that had been
troubling her since the summer. Elizabeth's back began to
cause more serious concerns; in November 2006, there were worries
that the Queen would not be well enough to open the British
parliament, and, though she was able to attend, plans were drawn up
to cover her possible absence. In December, there were rumours of
ill health when she was seen in public with a bandage on her right
hand. However, the bandage was because one of her corgi bit her while she was separating
two that were fighting.

At the time of her 80th birthday, the Queen made it clear that she
had no intention of abdicating. For a
number of years, both Prince Charles and Princess Anne had been
standing in for their mother at events such as investitures, and
acting as Counsellors of State.
This led to some speculation in the British press that Prince
Charles would start to perform many of the day-to-day duties of the
monarch while Elizabeth effectively went into retirement. However,
Buckingham Palace announced that Elizabeth would continue with her
duties, both public and private, well into the future.

Public perception and character

Since Elizabeth rarely gives interviews, her personal feelings and
character remain distant. As a constitutional monarch, Elizabeth
has not expressed her personal political opinions in a public
forum, maintaining this discipline throughout her reign. She does
have a deep sense of religious and civic duty, and takes her
coronation oath seriously. She is known for her conservative
clothes, consisting mostly of solid-colour overcoats and decorative
hats, which allow her to be seen easily in a crowd. Her main
leisure interests include horse racing, photography, and dogs,
especially her Pembroke Welsh
Corgis.

In the 1950s, as a young woman at the start of her reign, Elizabeth
was depicted as a glamorous "fairytale Queen". After the trauma of
the war, it was a time of hope, a period of progress and
achievement heralding a "new Elizabethan age". Lord Altrincham's
accusation in 1957 that she was a "priggish schoolgirl" was an
extremely rare criticism. In the late 1960s, attempts to portray a
more modern image of monarchy were made in the television
documentary Royal Family, and by televising Prince
Charles's investiture
as Prince of Wales. At her silver jubilee, the crowds and
celebrations were genuinely enthusiastic, but in the 1980s public
criticism of the royal family increased, as the personal and
working lives of Elizabeth's children came under media scrutiny.
Elizabeth's popularity sank to a low point in the 1990s; under
pressure from public opinion she began to pay income tax for the
first time, and Buckingham Palace was opened to the public.
Discontent with the monarchy reached its
peak on the death of Diana, Princess of
Wales, and only faded once the Queen had broadcast to the
world. In November 1999, a referendum in Australia on
the future of the monarchy favoured its retention. Later
polling, however, indicated that the Republic referendum failed as
much because of dissatisfaction with the way the Republican options
were proposed as with respect for the monarchy. As her Golden
Jubilee year began, the media speculated whether it would be a
success or a failure. The year began sombrely with the death of
Elizabeth's sister and mother, but a million people attended each
day of the three-day main Jubilee celebration in London. The
enthusiasm shown by the public for Elizabeth was greater than many
journalists had predicted. Polls in 2006 revealed strong support
for Elizabeth; the majority of respondents desired that she remain
on the throne until her death, and many felt that she had become an
institution in herself.

Finances

Elizabeth's personal fortune has been the subject of speculation
for many years. Forbes magazine
estimated her net worth at around US$450 million (GB£270 million) in 2009, but official
Buckingham Palace statements in 1993 called estimates of £100
million "grossly overstated". The Royal
Collection, which includes artworks and the Crown Jewels, is not owned by the Queen
personally and is held in trust, as are
the occupied palaces in the United Kingdom such as Buckingham
Palace and Windsor Castle, and the Duchy of
Lancaster, a property portfolio valued at £323 million in
2009. As with many of her predecessors, Elizabeth is
reported to dislike Buckingham Palace as a residence, and prefers
Windsor Castle. Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle are privately owned by the Queen.Income
from the British Crown Estate—with
holdings of £6 billion in 2009—is transferred to the British treasury in return for Civil List
payments. Both the Crown Estate and the Crown Land of Canada—comprising 89% of
Canada's land area—are owned by the Sovereign in trust for the
nation, and cannot be sold or owned by Elizabeth in a private
capacity.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

Elizabeth has held a number of titles throughout her life, as
granddaughter of the monarch, as a daughter of the monarch, through
her husband's titles, and eventually as sovereign of multiple
states. In common practice, she is referred to most often as simply
The Queen or Her Majesty. Officially, she has a
distinct title in each of her realms: Queen of Canada in Canada, Queen of Australia in Australia, Queen of New Zealand in New Zealand,
etc. In the Channel Islands and
Isle of
Man, which are Crown
dependencies rather than separate realms, she is known as
Duke of Normandy and Lord of Man respectively. Additional
styles include Defender of the Faith
and Duke of Lancaster. When in
conversation with the Queen, the practice is to initially address
her as Your Majesty and thereafter as Ma'am
(which, properly pronounced rhymes with "ham").

Elizabeth has received many honours and awards from countries
around the world, and has held many honorary military positions
throughout the Commonwealth, both before and after her
accession.

Arms

The arms of The Princess Elizabeth,
before her marriage.

From 21 April 1944 until her marriage to the Duke of Edinburgh,
Elizabeth's arms consisted of a lozenge bearing the same charges as the shield of the Royal coat of arms,
and a label of three points argent, the
centre bearing a Tudor Rose and the first
and third a cross of St George. Following her marriage, these arms
were impaled with those of the Duke of Edinburgh. After her
accession as Sovereign, she adopted the royal coat of arms
undifferenced.

Similarly, Elizabeth bears a number of
personal flags for use in some of her realms: two in the United Kingdom (one for
Scotland and another for all other areas), and one each for
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, and Barbados. These
consist of the banners of the
associated Royal Arms, all, save for those of the UK, defaced with Elizabeth's personal badge: a
crowned letter E within a circle of roses on a blue disk.
This same badge is also used as the Queen's personal flag
for her role as Head of the Commonwealth, or for visiting
Commonwealth countries where she is not head of state.